Chair, T.J. Ray, called the Faculty Senate to order at 2:05 p.m., November 10, 1995, in
Conner 122.
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE CHAIR: Chair Ray opened the meeting
MEMORIAL RESOLUTION FOR LARRY DEBORD: offered by Senator Grisham. See attachment.
The resolution was unanimously approved and the Faculty Senate observed a moment of silence.
Chair Ray discussed the role of the Foundation in channeling material support to the university. He referred to his recent presentation before the Foundation Board and urged the Faculty Senate to work with the Foundation. He then introduced Don Fruge.
PRESENTATION ON THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION: by Don Fruge, Executive Vice President.
Don Fruge opened his presentation stating that the mission of the Foundation and its reason for existing was to support the university. He explained the difference between the Office of Development and the Foundation. The Office of Development is staffed by university employees and contributions are deposited to a university account. The Foundation is a private organization and contributions are deposited to a checking account. The Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of 32 non-university members and 5 officers. The president and president-elect are always non-university personnel with the other three being university personnel. In response to a question regarding endowments, Fruge explained that the reported endowment considers funds contributed both through the Office of Development and the Foundation. Fruge reported that private giving to the university had increased from just over 10 million dollars in 1991 to 17.7 million dollars this past year. "Historically going back to 1994 we raised about two million dollars from 2,000 donors. The 17.7 million dollars comes from about 10,000 donors. The endowment funds are those that we hold and invest. The earnings provide support for scholarships, faculty, the library and so forth. This endowment is the lifeblood and the future of the university. We're going to continue to grow that and we're proud to see it grow from 11 million to 75 million in a short period of time. We enter into an agreement with the Endowment donors of which there are about 600 now between the university and The Foundation. About half of the them are for student scholarships, about 25% are faculty support, 16% for academic program support, and 8% for the library. We all recognize that the library should be increased as a part of that pie, but all phases should be increased, frankly." He then referred to Memory House and its role for the Foundation. "There are about 15 of us that work there each day, yet it is being used for a number of functions. The purpose of that is to provide a place for meetings and conferences. We invite you to use Memory House. Since July 1st we've had approximately 34 events there. The House was purchased through a $300,000 gift by William Brant, a member of the board. The house was in shambles and we spent about $600,000 restoring it. The Foundation authorized the borrowing of $400,000 toward the renovation. We have about $60,000 in pledges. Our board has basically provided the support to purchase and renovate the structure."
"We have an annual fund concept we call Excellence 21." He described levels of giving beginning with partners at $100, associates at $1,000 and others in between. He referred to assigning names to larger gifts and making an effort to move donors from one level of giving up to the next. "Recently we honored members of the Lyceum Society with presentation of a brick from the Lyceum. There are seventeen families who have given a million dollars to the university."
He referred to the creation of a Provost model with three Vice Chancellors. Fruge becomes the Vice chancellor for Advancement. "My job is to coordinate these people (involved in fund raising), Sesquicentennial, Alumni Affairs Office, Academic Deans, and others. I'm excited, I think it's going to work. For the first time we are going to have under one umbrella all the people who do fundraising at the University of Mississippi." Fruge introduced Steve Owens, the Executive Director of Development. "We are going to free up his time to spend three days a week on the road fundraising. He's good at that, and that is what we need him to do." Ron Guest is the Assistant Director for Operations. He will be there handling day to day operations. He extolled the value of the of the Ole Miss Associates program. "About three million dollars has been raised through this program, through people who give a thousand dollars a year through this program. The goal is to get the number up to 500 sustaining members. David Kraus has been doing an outstanding job (handling the Associates program). The other person hired this past year is the Director of Deferred and Planned giving, Brad Walsh." He reviewed Walsh's background as an Ole Miss alumnus. "He attended the School of Law here and is a CPA. He has experience in estate planning. This is an area with great potential for increasing our endowment and our annual giving. The most recent hire is Debbie Hund, Development Associate Research Coordinator. You can go to here to get information on potential donors including corporations and foundations. Debbie was formerly with the Alumni Association Annual Fund, so she is very familiar with our donor base."
"We have been meeting with the Foundation and the Sesquicentennial Committee regarding some topics of significance to us and to you, I think. We want the Sesquicentennial campaign to be highly successful. We intend it to be clearly a joint effort by everyone at the university. It is not going to be successful unless the faculty clearly participate from the ground up and become a partner with the Development Office and Foundation. You will soon be receiving information about proposals that might fit into this. The Champions' Committee is ongoing and this will also fit into this campaign. We want you to help us identify donors. People give to this university because some relationship exists with this university. Faculty have that relationship. You can help us. You can go with us, if you are comfortable with that. We do a newsletter, Foundation News. We think its important the Faculty have this as well as the donors. Lastly, we certainly ask the Faculty to be a part of the giving side, as well as the receiving side.
"At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Foundation, Chancellor Khayat challenged the Board to come up with a program leading to an application fora Phi Beta Kappa chapter on this campus. He started the program back in 1986. Phi Beat Kappa identified a number of areas where we need to improve. One of those was library collections. We have about 800,000 volumes. We would like to grow that to about 1,000,000 by the year 2000 with state of the art technology and research collection depository. We need to increase the average ACT scores on this campus. We can do this through increasing scholarships. As far as teaching excellence, we need salary enhancements, chairs, professorships, lectureships, and technology enrichment grants to give our faculty the tools to be the best teachers they can become. We need an honors program endowment. So one of the goals, not articulated by anyone yet on this campus, is that we would like a $100 million endowment. It's at $75 million, and I think we can grow that, I hope by the end of the Sesquicentennial. The Sesquicentennial campaign will then lead into a campaign for the 21st century. You are leading us to what you think is needed to enhance this university. The broad goal of the Foundation says that we are willing to work with the Faculty to enhance those areas (referred to above). I believe that the proposals you are working on will fit neatly into the broad categories (of fund raising programs). We are in a partnership together. It's only going to work , if we work as a team and move in the same direction together. Since July 1, we have received about four million dollars and two million dollars in pledges, so we are off to a banner year. I want to tell you that we are rated among the top 400 philanthropies, and that Arthur Anderson has given us a clean (bill of health.)"
Fruge then answered questions. Asked about the proportion through the Loyalty Foundation, Fruge responded that of the 17.7 million dollars raised last year, about 2 million was for athletic support. Last year was the largest hear the Loyalty Foundation has ever had.
"To support use of the endowment, our goal is to have a 5% cash flow. Right now the investment mix is about 60% bonds and 40% stocks. The investment mix is often dictated by the donor." Regarding sesquicentennial proposals, faculty have been invited to submit proposals up through the administration, and all that is going on. Dr. Fruge said he hoped the provost would be on board by July 1st and would provide guidance on the sesquicentennial on these proposals. In response to a question, Dr. Fruge clarified a point saying that the Memory House is owned by the University Foundation. It is not state property. There was some further discussion that it would be desirable to have a Faculty Senate meeting sometime at the Memory House.
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REPORTS BY COMMITTEE CHAIRS:
Committee on Academic Support: On behalf of the committee, Senator Eftink presented the report on "Enhancing Teaching Effectiveness." Senator Eftink chaired the Task Force on Improving Teaching. A summary of his committee's report was distributed to the faculty. Senator Eftink pointed out that the report deals with the main factors affecting effectiveness. He noted that we should be asking ourselves, "is there a problem?" He referred to the public, the legislature, and the college board as looking closely at issues of accountability. He felt that there should be less emphasis on the hours that we work and more on the quality of what we have done. He said that we have placed a lot of emphasis on research activities, but we haven't put as much effort into deciding what we mean by quality teaching. To improve this situation, Senator Eftink then outlined his committee's proposals. The three primary elements of their recommendations consider evaluation, rewards, and development. He noted that some people are good teachers without any particular training, but some people are not as effective, and they would like to have some assistance. He said that the committee had not spent a great deal of time talking about student evaluation of teachers. "We have just accepted that." However, the committee felt that student evaluations cannot be all that we accept because their evaluation does not get to issues such as whether material is contemporary or not. He then outlined some suggested tools for the conduct of peer evaluation and self evaluation of teaching. He likewise outlined several awards and teaching development tools as shown in the following table.
| Table 1. Initiatives to Enhance Teaching Effectiveness | |
| Evaluate | Student: current form, plus departmental questions Self: personal reflection Peer: portfolios, evaluation teams, teaching effectiveness counselors |
| Reward | Awards: several annually, portfolio-based Professorships: Master Teacher, pay supplement Tenure and Promotion: decisions supported by teaching evaluation procedure |
| Develop | Information: reports, articles, handbooks Training: technology, methods, hints Guidance: Master Teacher mentors, Coordinator of Teaching Effectiveness |
After Senator Eftink's presentation, a number of comments were made. One regarded the need to distinguish junior colleges from universities. Another was criticism stating the need to define what is teaching effectiveness and raising the question of how we deal with poor teaching. Another suggestion was that we address student effectiveness by having a complimentary campaign. Finally, one senator remarked that research effectiveness can also serve as some measure, an objective measure, of teaching effectiveness.
REPORT FROM THE CHAIR ON THE PROFESSORATE: Senator Ray referred to a study done by the Carnegie Foundation which had been passed around to the deans on the Academic Council. He felt that the Faculty Senate should be involved any time there's discussion on redefining how we recognize, compensate, and reward faculty. He felt that the Senate and the faculty ought to be the group that leads the discussion of that. The report addresses research and teaching. He said the report addressed two other points that struck him as important. One is that they redefine service to include service to the profession, meaning serving as a consultant or as a referee on a journal. The other point is that they introduced a concept they called the "Scholarship of Integration." This refers to people in the profession who can interpret the research to the rest of the world, as in making it understandable to the public and to legislators. "This is an interesting document, at least around the academic circles, and if they are talking about it, we should listen. The document makes a lot of sense to me."
Committee on Faculty Governance: Since time ran short, Senator Sisson will report on the issue of review of administrators at the next meeting.
Search Committees: Senator Ray noted that Senator Hopkins would be heading the committee on the provost search.
OLD BUSINESS: None
NEW BUSINESS: None
Time ran short and there was a vote on extending the session to consider the matter of evaluating administrators. The vote was 9-8 failing the needed two-thirds majority.
Chair T.J. Ray adjourned the meeting at 3:57 pm.